Paramount Skydance Launches Hostile Bid For WBD After Netflix Wins Bidding War (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0180330915
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/12/08/1429227/paramount-skydance-launches-hostile-bid-for-wbd-after-netflix-wins-bidding-war
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/08/paramount-skydance-hostile-bid-wbd-netflix.html
> Paramount will go straight to WBD shareholders with an all-cash, $30-per-share offer. That's the same bid WBD rejected last week, according to people familiar with the bid who asked not to be named because the details were private. The offer is backstopped with equity financing from the Ellison family and the private-equity firm RedBird Capital and $54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo Global Management.
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> "We're really here to finish what we started," Ellison told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" Monday. "We put the company in play." On Friday, Netflix announced a deal to [2]acquire WBD's studio and streaming assets for $72 billion . David Ellison-run Paramount had been bidding for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, including those assets and the company's TV networks like CNN and TNT Sports.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/08/paramount-skydance-hostile-bid-wbd-netflix.html
[2] https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/12/05/1728256/netflix-to-buy-warner-bros-in-72-billion-cash-stock-deal
Let me get the popcorn... (Score:3, Funny)
...and watch the deep pockets of Netflix duke it out against the politically-favored Paramount+Ellisons.
Not that we, the movie-enjoying public, will benefit from either side winning. But it may provide interesting entertainment in the meantime.
Is he even sane? (Score:4, Informative)
It sounds like WBD rejected the offer for good reason.
Ellison is offering $72B for everything. Netflix is offering $72B for just studio and streaming assets.
So Ellison expects to get the whole cable network for free? Why would they even consider that?
Apparently there was a dispute over the value of their network... but it's surely greater than zero.
Re: (Score:3)
Where did you get $72bn from? Right in TFA they say $30/share equates to $108.4 billion which is ultimately what Ellison's offer was. I don't think anyone has pretended that the cable part of the business is worth zero. Netflix's bid is $27.75/share
Re: (Score:3)
You're not wrong, but I think your numbers are a little off. NYT Numbers, cite below:
Netflix - $83B, no cable networks
Paramount - $108B, networks convey
Not sure what value I'd put on Discovery, etc., either. Those carriage fees can't be growing, and that $4/mo streamer Roku keeps pitching can't be that big...
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[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2025/1... [nytimes.com]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/business/paramount-warner-bros-discovery-netflix.html
Re: (Score:2)
Your numbers are wrong.
Netflix offered $27 and change per share.
Paramount offered $30 per share. That is about 10% more.
You need to read the article, not just the summary.
Ellison wants it for his son (Score:3)
Ellison wants it so his son can go to premiers and pretend he did something to earn his place in society and not nepotism.
Re: Ellison wants it for his son (Score:3)
Also, there's a fever pitch effort to rehabilitate Israel's image and reshape cultural values to support apartheid and genocide when the correct people do it.
$27.75 per share vs $30 per share (Score:2)
Hmmm which do we think the shareholder wants?
Once More el Bunko strikes (Score:3)
Ellison's sprog is an el Bunko favorite, a right-wingnut. So naturally, el Bunko figures he can destroy the Netflix deal and throw the remains to Ellison's sprog, for which there will be a trail of bread crumbs back to his pockets. He never does anything except for himself.
It's about Israel again.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, it's about Israel again: [1]https://www.972mag.com/ellison... [972mag.com]
I wish they could just keep it simple, have defined borders, withdraw to the 1967 borders, live and let live, and stop trying to be the regional hegemon. Most of the world, in including Palestinians begrudgingly, would accept the Israeli state if it wasn't inherently expansionist and if it would allow Palestinians full autonomy within the areas they were forced into(1967 or even 1948).
[1] https://www.972mag.com/ellisons-paramount-tiktok-israel-media-empire/
Taking the number of studios from 5 down to 4 (Score:2)
Warner Bros and Paramount are two of the "Big 5" Hollywood studios. New studios are not created very often. You could even argue that there has never been a new major studio, as every one of the current "Big 5" studios were in some way members of the "Big 8" 100 years ago. It's just been companies buying existing studios, like Sony buying Columbia/Tri-star or Disney (just as old as the rest) buying Fox.
If Netflix were to buy Warner, there would still be a "Big 5". If Paramount buys it, we go to 4. Is
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If you think Hollywood is suddenly "woke" then you haven't been paying attention to movies for a good 70 years.
Re: epic battle (Score:2)
"Let's see one of you rich, pasty white motherfuckers try to sneak into Mexico or Russia with no papers"
Spoken like someone who has never left his hometown. You really think you can't get into Mexico without a passport? No sneaking necessary. You just walk across in plain view.
Re:epic battle (Score:5, Interesting)
>> If you think Hollywood is suddenly "woke" then you haven't been paying attention to movies for a good 70 years.
> No, you dumbass, the whole idea here is that with Ellison taking over Skydance / Paramount, the idea is that there is some balance being injected into the business.
> After all, as you point out, Hollywood has been a woke dumpster fire since the beginning.
> There needs to be a balance. For every Leftist billionaire funding sedition and division, there must be a Rightist billionaire pushing unity and deporting the abject filth being imported into this country since the mid 60's but hugely accellerated under Biden's teunure of 2020-2024.
> Deport them all.
> Let's see one of you rich, pasty white motherfuckers try to sneak into Mexico or Russia with no papers. Let's see how well those two countries treat you.
> Don't like it? Get the fuck out. Leave. Go live where you're happy, wherever that may be.. but not here.
Right, let's cut through the noise. There is a significant political dimension to this story that's been buried under a mountain of speculation. The Trump administration is openly favoring David Ellison's bid for WBD, with officials stating that the owner of WBD is highly important to the administration. This political interest is underscored by a recent, controversial event. Paramount paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over a Kamala Harris interview, and their merger was approved shortly afterward. Now, three senators are investigating whether Ellison cut a side deal with Trump, raising legitimate corruption concerns. Ellison's own political history paints a picture of strategic opportunism. He is a self-described social liberal who gave nearly a million dollars to Biden's campaign. Yet, he began appearing at UFC fights with Trump precisely when he needed regulatory approval. Furthermore, under his leadership, CBS dissolved its race and culture unit, laid off women disproportionately, and fired the Gaza correspondent. This isn't ideological balance; it's strategic positioning for business advantage. The real story here is that the Trump administration appears to be using antitrust power to reward friendly billionaires and penalize others. As the Writers Guild noted, we are handing the keys to the media kingdom to entities primarily motivated by maximizing short-term returns. This is a genuine scandal about the antitrust process being compromised by political favouritism and billionaires acquiring media influence through political connections. David Ellison isn't correcting decades of Hollywood ideology. He is simply demonstrating that paying the right people and making the right promises gets regulatory approval.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]Larry Ellison Is a ‘Shadow President’ in Donald Trump’s America [wired.com]
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/larry-ellison-is-a-shadow-president-in-donald-trumps-america/
Re: (Score:3)
If leftists policies do not work how can there be leftist billionaires? Or do you mean right wing billionaires who virtue signal to gain the money of the leftists?
Netflix is the epicenter of anti-woke (Score:2)
> No, you dumbass, the whole idea here is that with Ellison taking over Skydance / Paramount, the idea is that there is some balance being injected into the business.
Half of Netflix's standup specials are anti-woke marquee comedians, very few of which are actually funny. Take Andrew Schultz...shitty edgelord whose comedy persona is throwing the R word around and shitting on people different than him. Offensive comedy is like hot sauce...a little bit of offensiveness can be spicy and edgy....Schultz's material is just boring...it's like sriracha on saltines...gives the burn, but no good flavor. But hey, he interviewed Trump for some reason...not sure why Trump wanted
Re: (Score:2)
> Fortunately, this anti-woke comedy scene seems to be imploding.
Released earlier this year but if anyone has yet to see it this video is really fantastic at breaking down how this came about and why it feels so weird and unfunny, even to the audience they're trying to reach.
[1]How Comedy Was Destroyed by an Anti-Reality Doomsday Cult [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewvRS3NwIlQ&t=4166s&pp=ygUSZWxlcGhhbnQgZ3JhdmV5YXJk0gcJCSUKAYcqIYzv
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, I bailed when Captain Kirk started making out with green skinned women. Who wants to see that?
Re: (Score:2)
Anti-woke will ALWAYS shoot itself in the foot. There's a very basic issue at play, if you are a part of a group that feels they are being discriminated against, there will be protests, and a push against that discrimination. Race, ethnic group, sex, gender, or whatever, that push back against discrimination will ALWAYS happen. And, the more that discrimination goes on, the bigger the push back will be.
Now, this is where it shoots the anti-woke people in the foot, when the push back happens, it doesn'